Wreck Chasing: Urban Exploration of Planes, Trains, Ships, Cars and Trucks

If you were to divide urban exploration into three basic groups I think it would have to be buildings, drains/tunnels and the third would be transportation. I could be wrong and, no doubt, the whole thing is debatable. However, when I think about trying to fit in the various exploring locations and structures, that's how I sum it up.

It's all part of urban exploration. Explorers aren't just in the city looking at old buildings. Urban explorers are rooftopping, looking underground in tunnels and drains. Urban explorers are in rural areas too, looking at abandoned farms, farm equipment, old churches and so on. Urban explorers are in industrial places, looking at abandoned and derelict mines, steel plants and industrial machines they may never see anywhere else.

Airplanes, aircraft, trains, ships and boats are the transportation sort of wrecks you might think of first. There are also car wrecks, but none of these are photographed at the scene of a horrible accident. People who chase wrecks (as urban explorers) are not the ambulance chasers or reporters trying to win a spot on the front page of a newspaper.

Far from looking for human pain and suffering, wreck chasers are looking at the pain of the abandoned machines, the rusted out hulks and the sadly decayed remains of the man made, mighty machines.

Myself, I have found abandoned trains, abandoned tractors and mainly abandoned vehicles: cars and trucks and one city bus.

I've seen one abandoned car, left to die after it was damaged in part of a house fire. Another was left at the site of a house which was being demolished to make way for a shopping plaza or maybe new housing so there would be someone to shop at the plazas already in the area.

The abandoned bus I found was behind a fence, far outside the city of Toronto, where the bus had originally run in it's day.

The abandoned train was on an abandoned, forgotten train track. Far out in a rural area, I found two trains, one a much older train than the other. Both had the big engine and several cars in between. Only the older one had a caboose.

If you drive on the highway between Toronto and Hamilton you may notice an old tall ship floating at a bend in the road. It was once made over into a restaurant. Sometime later vandals set it on fire. There isn't a lot left of the old ship now. But, you can get there, just off the highway, if you study the map a bit and find the exit.

I've yet to see an abandoned airplane. Likely you would find some at airports, planes which someone used to own and then didn't come back to maintain or fly any more.